Mon Ange De L'enfer
by Amberlin
Summary: Retelling of ALW Phantom, with hints of Leroux and more in depth character analysis. Starts from Erik's boyhood. Will be faithful to story.
1. Chapter 1

**This is going to be a complete retelling of the movie version, with real dialogue instead of music. I will also be changing the motivations and actions of ****some of the character****d but each scene will have the same outcome as in the movie. For instance, on the rooftop scene, Christine will be a bit more like Christine from the book - more intelligent and more self-willed but it will still end with her and Raoul. This will be told from Erik's pov (yes, he is Erik in this one) and will show his thoughts and feelings from his boyhood and through the movie. This is my first POTO fanfic, I hope I can do it justice! BTW, I love reviews, especially constructive ones!**

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Her hair was in curls; lazy ones, as though the mere effort of tightening was too much for them. Ginger with hints of sepia and bronze, her locks took on different colors as she moved; fell in supple ringlets over her shoulder as she hovered over me; so soft that at first touch I had mistaken them for cool damp linen brushing against my cheek as she reached to stroke my uncovered face.

I tried to bite her.

Tried to gnash my teeth into the delicate underside of her wrist; hopeful to see blood pulse from her vein. This woman was not my owner; she had no right to lay a hand on me. And so I thrashed at her. Very ungentlemanly of me, I know.

But I don't suppose much more could have been expected from a boy in my condition; laying on the damp wood, and scratchy, brittle hay of my cage floor, my face exposed as I stared up at the stars sneaking slowly across the sky, my body so heavy that I felt as though I was sinking into the ground; my jaw numb and tingling with pin pricks; the strand ends of my hair in my mouth. I chewed on them absently, my mind in that peacefully empty and blank space where nothing seemed to happen outside the beating of my heart, letting me know that at least I was still alive. I'd been thinking of how to stop it, wondering if it was possible to merely _will_ yourself dead, wallowing in my own delightfully morbid thoughts, when she'd reached out for me.

I thought she meant me harm. I instinctively covered the right side of my face as she sprung away, jerking her arm back to protect it from my violent outburst, clutching her wrist protectively.

I arched my head back, glaring at her upside down, lowering my hand to grace her with my horrid face, trying to scare her with my deformity. She didn't flinch, and I finally recognized her.

What was her name? Anya? Anyka? Aria? Something odd. Whatever her name was, she already knew of my face. Her tent was only a bit away from my cage. She was the fire eater.

No.

She was the contortionist; the pretty one, or at least, the one with the normal appearance. I'd watched her a few times as she performed, tuning out the verbose and bombastic declarations falling and dropping out of the mouth of my owner as he readied the crowd for the horror he was about to show them; staring out the cell bars as she wormed her leg over her head, watching her in naive fascination. Though, I am sure now that most of the well-to-do gentlemen, accompanied by their wives and children, had much more lecherous reasons for wanting to watch her.

_Bon! Bon! _They'd say and walk away, pretending they were better than her, pretending that weren't just imagining her without her tights and ballet shoes.

I'd always wondered what a girl like her was doing in a place of such wretchedness. She had no deformities; when she spoke, her voice was throaty, cultured, and quick. What had driven her here? I would never ask her, in all the years I lived there with her, traveled with her amongst our party, I would never ask her. One word would pass through my lips to her ears, and that was all, during all my time there. However long that was. I really had no concept of time anymore. Days were spent in one long sequence. Wake up, lie in my cage, eat some bread and water, lie some more, be beaten and exposed at night, and sleep.

Quite a dull existence in most respects.

I wasn't sure of how old I was. I'd entered the carnival at eight years of age, and I left it as eight years of age, as far as I was concerned. How many years really passed, I had no idea, but I needed to pretend that it hadn't been long; that this period of my life was a brief stop to something greater; something painfully beautiful . . . for there would always be pain, I knew. I was simply waiting for the beauty.

That girl stared at me. Her face screwed up with pity and frustration. The look was reminiscent of my own mother, before she sold me, in the more tranquil moments of our life together. Anya, or Ankya, or whatever, said something in her language that I didn't understand and walked away, her hair catching the light of the torches shoved deep into the earth like a prism, the orange glows sliding down her curls and plunging off the ends.

I should have asked her to stay, I knew. I _knew_ if I called to her, she'd return. But I considered her silently as she walked away; watching the unfamiliar shifts of her hips and bounces of her hair as she floated off into the distance. It was my first pleasant image in this world.

Once she'd disappeared back into her tent, I resumed my thoughts without much concern for what I'd just done. I'd refused kindness. It wouldn't be the first time I'd snubbed a compassionate gesture out of fear of mistreatment, and somewhere in me, like a portentous surge, I knew it would not be the last.

It looked as though it may rain soon. The cell bars were icy, circulating peculiar shudders through my arm as I gripped it, reveling in the strong sensation. A chill seeped into my cage, my own personal Tartarus, soaking into my shoulder and thighs. It was the closest to a bath I'd come to in at least a few weeks, which was the last time Gregioff had thrown a bucket of tepid water on me. The damp was remarkably agreeable against my goose bumped flesh. There was a dreary tint to the void above me; no clouds, merely a shade of smoky grey that seemed to be curtaining the sky, dimming the luminaries, and swathing the moon. I imagined it raining flames, scorching and cleaning the world of all its detritus, of all the evil and filth and clearing the way for new growth and flowering. _He will rain down upon the wicked ones, traps, fire, sulphur, and a scorching wind, as the portion of their cup._

I wondered if I would be spared.

I breathed in the rain-scented air, catching the faint scent cashews and honey left in Anya's wake, and toyed with my discarded mask. I'd become so adapted to it that it was unsettling to see any thing in my peripheral vision besides black wool and to smell anything besides dried sweat and remnants of salty tears. But the wintry air against my cheeks prevented me from donning it once more, and the cracked lip I'd obtained during the show was still bleeding and sensitive. I reveled in the rare freedom of exposure and stared up at the heavens of Paris.

I knew I was in Paris; I understood French and the murmured exclamations of "_Mon dieu! C'est l'enfant de demon!" _were clearly identifiable.

The looming statue of Apollo's Lyre that graced the music hall was visible to me even here. I wished to be up there with him, near God, near perfection, intimate with the Muses, above all . . . walking within my own music and poetry.

I was in Paris.

My mother and father had dreamed of visiting France. She'd always wanted to see the Arch De Triumphe and listen to the Opera. That dream has been thoroughly trampled and smeared into the stained wood of her bed chamber's floor the night I was born.

When shown his child and asked for the name by the midwife, my father had only been capable of a disgusted "_this thing?" _

He'd left that night, as my mother slept with me in her arms. That was the only moment she'd loved me, in that peaceful time of ignorance as we slept together. The breaking of the new day brought with it her hate; her fear and loathing of this thing that had destroyed her life and driven away her love. She'd wrapped the blanket about my head and set me down, ignoring my cries, ignoring me until she couldn't any longer.

And now here I was in Paris. I would have laughed at the irony of it all had I been able to find some glimmer of humor in it at the time. I would soon learn to appreciate the nasty incongruity and cruelty of the world and all the hilarity of it. In fact, I would soon learn how delicious it could all be.

I wondered where she was.

I rolled onto my side and brought my ashy and cracked knees up to my chin. Thoughts of my mother shamed me into slipping on my callous and abrasive mask once more. My mother, my poor, unhappy mother had never kissed me. She would throw me my mask and turn away from me. She never watched me cover myself.

She'd named me three months into our time together. Erik. _Complete ruler_, it meant. I couldn't even rule my own thoughts. She should have named me something more fitting . . . _Saaghir_, perhaps. _Submissive, yielding_.

Pathetic.

Or perhaps she should have given me two names, one for my left side, one for my right. _Angra Mainyu _. . . source of all darkness, sterility and death. That is what the mask hid. That is what I had been called in Persia in the later years of my life, after my reign; after it all; after I'd slunk away with only a memory and regrets weighing down my feet. I'd laughed at their whispers, no longer conscious of the outside world or concerned with their thoughts. I wasn't capable of shame any longer after . . . _her_.

"_Hades_, is more apropos." I'd corrected, "Ruler of an underworld, capturer of my own Persephone; I killed the innocence of innocence itself." That had put a stop to their bloody ignorant words. My complacence unsettled them more than my face.

That indifferent manner had upset my mother as well. I remembered clearly those frequent and black moments of her despair and rage; screaming at me, or God, lamenting her life, the loss of her angel; of the perfect little child she'd dreamed of. She had a figurine she kept, Mother Mary and her Infant, which she'd touch every night as she lay in her bed.

She'd broken it with a strong resolve the morning of the day she sold me to the gypsies. I'd woken to the loud crack of the broken porcelain as she brought it down with force on my lone set of drawers, shattering the pieces onto my dusty threadbare carpet. I'd stepped on them as she hauled me out of bed and into my mask; stepped on the face of Mother Mary and her perfect son.

She'd been upset with me. I had dared to speak to her, and even worse, I had dared to defy her by balking at her request for me to put on my mask. I'd stood at the threshold of her chamber door, the linen makeshift veil in both hands, as if I were offering it up as a sacrifice. I listened to her uncontrolled ranting, unmoved by her tears for the first time, refusing her command to cover myself.

"_I did not ask for this", _she'd murmured.

The words made it to the tip of my tongue before I swallowed them back . . .

_I did not ask for this either. _

Instead, I'd told her she should have drowned me in the Thames the day I was born. I don't know why the words upset her so; she'd declared that to me on many occasions herself. But she'd slapped my face twice in rage before gathering me tightly to her, weeping into the top of my hair, my mask caught between our bodies, neither of us breathing.

That day, we'd left the house for the first time in four years. I didn't realize what was happening until the silver was exchanged.

I didn't want to admit at the time that my insolence had led me to this place, though it was the only thing my child's mind could understand. In following years, as I grew wiser, it would occur to me she'd run low on money and when faced with the choice of selling herself or her demon son, she'd forfeited the thing of less worth to her.

I should have run, fled for my life and dignity, but I simply stood behind her, in my best clothes. I never understood why she felt the need to make me respectable, merely for the purpose of selling me to the traveling fair; seemed rather specious even at the time.

She'd also bound my hands, securing my fingers with no leeway, as if I would scratch her.

As though she thought that I would harm her.

The last thing I remember was her hands, cool against my cheeks as she cupped my face, holding her palm over my malformation, and examining me for the last time with a longing look. And then she was gone and there hasn't been a day when I haven't thought of her.

_Fate links thee to me forever and a day. _

That night I dreamt of blood; coating the flowers of the world that pulsed and thrummed with energy, with love. I cast them behind me; they wilted, melted to barren earth, weeping for me . . . and I laughed.

* * *

The next time Anya approached me was a few weeks later. The day was a startling hot one, after the bout of rain we'd undergone, and the smell of refuse and hay soaked heavily into the air. Bugs buzzed about the various tents and old food from the camp, raising a stench that was inarticulately repulsive and rendered me almost lightheaded under the sweltering sun that beat down on me with no barrier. The week had been full of visits from the ballet monsters; little heartless terrors in slippers that threw food at me and giggled. I hated them, more so because they were young, because they were _nothing, _and still they laughed at me. 

Anya had bound her long hair back into a tight bun and stomped over to my cage with a frown. I had to admire her audacity. She didn't speak, merely lobbed something at me through the cage bars. It landed on my chest and slid to my side before I understood what it was. Moving was painful at this time, my front was sore, and the mask adhered to the dried blood on my lips, but I reached out and felt the downy fleece brush against my knuckles. I held it close to my face in order to plainly see it through the inadequate slits cut in my mask.

I held it in my hands, and it looked back at me, dirty and half-destroyed.

Its cymbals caught a glint of moonlight and I saw my reflection. I also saw music. I clutched it to my chest, forgetting the formality of thanking her for the humble gift. Manners would be something I'd strive to maintain in more civilized settings, but as of now, it didn't seem so important.

"Don't think too much of it, it was given to me by some street rat as payment," she told me, her voice falsely hard. "Don't think I think so much of you. You're ill mannered, in my opinion. But '_the generous soul will itself be made fat, and the one freely watering others will, himself, also be freely watered'." _She proclaimed and then leaned on the side bars of my enclosure with no fear of this boy that had tried to maul her only a short while ago.

"Have you read the Bible?" She asked.

I remained silent, my finger flexing absently around the midsection of my new companion. My mother had quoted scripture to me, usually the darker parts of judgments and dooms. Whether she was hailing condemnation down upon herself or me was unclear, but perhaps that didn't matter. Her damnation was mine, and mine, hers.

I could see Anya watching me, I knew it was hard for others to see my eyes, and I used that to observe quietly those around me. She seemed to know I was staring at her, though, and gave me a small half-smile.

"I guess you wouldn't have. The church didn't baptize you, did they?" She continued.

She was correct. Her words made me anxious, the salt of my tears burning into the abrasions and cuts on my face and stinging painfully. I sniffled. We'd been turned away when the priest refused to grace my forehead with holy water. He'd prayed, held his cross and gestured we leave. There was no place in God's world for iniquity, he'd told us.

Anya stretched her hand out once more to touch my shoulder, but I inched away. She took up a lone strand of hay instead, rubbed it between two fingers, as if she'd been reaching for that instead of me.

"It isn't polite to ignore a person after they have offered you a gift, _мой мальчик. _Perhaps I should simply take it back?" She threatened.

I sobbed unexpectedly, shocking both of us, and clutched the sudden invaluable treasure to my chest. A connection had been formed in the few moments of our contact and to have it taken away seemed the end of the world. It would be a habit I would carry with me forever; strong attachments, jealousy, and the need to protect that which was mine and keep it with me . . . forever.

"I will not take it from you, _mon fils_, do not cry." She reassured, patting the cage floor in lieu of my shoulder and hummed a few bars of _The Resurrection of Lazarus_ to calm me. When I quieted, she crossed herself. "_If you although being wicked, no how to give good gifts to you children, how much more so will the father in heaven provide for those who ask_? God loves his children, _mon ami, et il n'est pas méchant."_

I sighed, long and loud at her recitations.

She fell quiet, wiping at the sweat on her brow and exhaling in a loud and labored way that confirmed that the heat was taking a toll on her breathing. Her bosom rose and fell deeply, slowly, as if it inhalation would be her last in this world. I watched with a strange enthrallment, as a boy seeing something new and mysterious.

"I was raped last night." She whispered abruptly. I had no idea what she meant, especially as she said this in French. I turned my head to watch her, drawn more by the depth of human sorrow in her voice than her words, because I was too young to understand them fully.

She leaned her straight and graceful forehead against my prison. "I know you don't know what this means, that's why I tell you this thing." She explained, "Perhaps when you are older, if you live much longer, you will know and will feel sorry for me. Perhaps you will remember the girl who suffered next to you. I will remember you, _мой мальчик. _I will remember you for the rest of my days."

She reached again, this time catching my toy, stroking the fuzzy back of the music monkey. Her fingers were long and artistic; her arms scratched with ugly, fresh marks. I bowed my head at her words, nearly rolling over to crush my toy beneath my body, to protect it; my head near her stroking fingers. The beaded eyes pressed into my skin. I wept. Oh, how I wept. She did not try to touch me again.

I wouldn't have moved away if she had.

"We can only hope for a dream, my boy; only wait to see the unraveling of our shadows. Our lives have already been written, and now we must play the notes that have been given us, die for what we are to die for, live for what we are to live for."

I stared up at Apollo, there above the near white sky, immortal, and beautiful, outlined by the midday sun until he was a mere shape bearing down on the mortals of earth. Anya followed my gaze.

"That is Apollo, god of the light, healing, prophecy, and poetry." She explained, "He loved often but was pained by those loves. He chased the nymph Daphne, who scorned him and turned herself into a Laurel bush to escape his attention. A Princess whom he loved was buried alive after a betrayal by her jealous sister. Marpessa was loved by Apollo as well but was kidnapped by Idas. Zeus made her pick between them, and she chose Idas because she believed Apollo, being immortal, would tire of her when she grew old." Anya sighed, "But Apollo made beautiful music and he sung better than any other god. Perhaps his radiance was fed from his pain. The deepest wells of our souls are dug by anguish. You like music, no?"

I didn't answer.

"I see you," she continued, "when the other gypsies play their music. You move about and wriggle, as if you can't lie still. Either you love it or you hate it. But either way, you feel strongly about it. I think you find it _beautiful_." She whispered the word and it rushed through me, like a strange secret that only I could know.

I loved it. I had never felt any joy that compared to listening to the high pitch notes and melodies as the men improvised wildly on their violins. My fingers tingled, blood rushing to their tips; my heart thumped in a slow excitement; my mouth went dry, my ears thrummed, and every nerve I possessed seem to stir with the music. I wished it would never end as I watched them through the swaying flame of the campfire, listening in a fever. I could almost weep at such splendor, such chaotic and disordered splendor; at the accents of beauty previously unknown of a superhuman exaltation. When I'd first heard it, beneath my damp mask, a smile had graced my lips, a smile like that of sick people when they first receive hope of healing. It was an elevated freedom, being held by those powerful chains of melody while floating high above my own body, my own thoughts.

Anya nodded, as if my silence had been an answer. "That is how we become a deity, undying, perpetual, and immortal ... in memories. Perhaps you will die for that beauty and you will be remembered."

"Why?" I croaked; my voice harsh, my throat hurting with the unfamiliar sensation of speech. My voice was a deep timbre for a child of my age, already smoothed and elegant. It vibrated through my body; seemed to rumble from deep in my chest.

"If we die for our strengths, for our passions, we will be remembered, here on earth and with God and his angels in paradise. You will be with me in paradise."

She didn't know what she was talking about. Senseless ramblings came pouring out her mouth like prophecy. I turned my head away, wishing she would stop. I had no strengths, no passions to die for. Only my new toy. Only my tears. Only that rising tide of darkness swamping my soul.

_What will you die for?_ I wanted to ask her. _Your contortions? _

But that would have been hurtful.

She didn't need my unkindness, the world had handed her enough; etched and imprinted it into every note and scale of her music and, as she said, she quietly sung the notes she was given.

As would I.


	2. Chapter 2

I'd been looking forward to dying. I didn't fear it as some did, but I knew that whatever was waiting for me in the afterlife could not be as horrid as what I lived now, because at least there, I would know I deserved it.

I knew, when I'd tied that noose around Griegoff's neck, that I'd signed and dotted my own death sentence with a composed, steady hand; that it would be the last night I would spend on this earth. It had seemed worth it at the time, for that little monkey music box that had become my best friend and the reason for my whole existence.

I hadn't _asked _to be saved.

I hadn't _asked _for salvation or her compassion.

It would seem that everything in my life, whether curses or blessings, would find me even though I hadn't been looking for them. Perhaps there was something higher sending them my way, testing me slowly.

In any case, I was fated to trade one cage for another, it would seem. From carnival to Opera House, from Opera House to Persia. They grew increasingly larger, but they all remained, in essence, cages.

I hadn't asked to be saved. I wanted to spit the words at her, at this tall red-headed girl who stood before me, wringing her fingers and gaping at me. The cold concrete seeped into my feet with a refreshing coolness that wasn't born from dampness, or spent tears, or rain.

I clutched my toy, still staring at her, neither of us saying a word for what seemed an eternity, until finally:

"You don't have to wear that anymore." She said.

I pulled away from her when she stepped towards me, unexpectedly apprehensive of her touch, though her cool hand in mine as she led me from the carnival to the bowels of the Opera House had been a pleasant one, a soothing one.

"I can bring you some food." She'd volunteered and then fell silent as if I were supposed to say something, as if there were any words to do justice to my situation.

"And a shirt," she continued, "and some shoes."

It was then that I realized with an incredibly lucid moment of recognition that she meant to leave me down there.  
The room we stood in was cavernous, made purely of stone and concrete, it seemed. There was a staircase behind us; a spiraling staircase that led to either nothing or hell; either way, I didn't know and I didn't care to know.  
Dimly I thought I could hear movement, footsteps, life somewhere around me but I didn't know if it were my own imagination or truly coming from above.

"There are many places here you can hide." She told me.

I stared at her. She was tall, at least a foot taller than me and five or six years older, depending on how old I was. Her straight hair was tide in a loop, with some falling down her back like the tail end of a horse. She was attractive, in a waiflike, delicate way. Though, from the set of her jaw and the sharpness of her eyebrows, I suspected she was truly anything but delicate.

She was a ballet rat, I could tell from the slippers she wore and her unpretentious cape. They'd all worn the same garb when they came to see me. She'd been the only one who hadn't laughed or looked amused by my malformation or my pitiable condition.

After I'd killed Griegoff, I'd met her gaze steadfastly. Somewhere well-hidden inside me, in the low corridors of my belly, I'd wanted to see fear in her, hoping that my latest action would cause her to turn away, to think that my deformity was much deeper than my skin.

But she hadn't turned away. She'd silently helped me from my cage, pulled me along, and I went, though I knew, I knew, she was leading me nowhere but to another confinement. A private one, a cleaner one, albeit, but the modicum of freedom I would find would not conceal the knowledge that I was merely held captive in another prison, because that was my portion of providence. Those were my notes and scales and I could not blot them out and beg for new ones.

She gazed a bit longer and, at last, asked once more if I wanted some food. My stomach forbid me from lying and my pride took a rest as I nodded mutely, my eyes on the ancient wall. She told me to wait for her and scampered off into the darkness, back to the higher levels where she and the others lived. I was quite certain we were underneath the chapel. After I'd climbed through the window, we'd gone into a entrance secreted into the wall and climbed down here onto this odd, concreted, plane of nothingness. There was a draft, convincing me that there were more doors, more places to go. I would ask when she returned where I was, if I could summon enough audacity to speak to her.

She brought me some cheese and bread wrapped in an aged shirt that was too big for me. She laid it all on the floor, knowing I didn't want her near me. I thrust the food into my mouth as if I hadn't eaten in days, which was the truth. She watched me with some sort of morbid fascination as I lifted the bottom of the mask only high enough to eat. Her owlish eyes observed every movement and her mouth opened, as if she wished to reassure me once again that I was not required to wear it in her presence, but the words seemed to die on her lips.

As they should have.

I wolfed down my meal too fast, nearly choking on the near-stale bread and thick, sharp cheese. She moved forward intuitively and then immediately stepped back. I almost wanted to laugh at her . . . she was very ungraceful for a ballerina.

She picked at something on the skirt of her dress, lifting it enough to give me an obscure but distracting view of her petite ankles and slender calves from where I crouched at her feet. I must have been locked away for much longer than I'd wanted to admit; I suddenly possessed an appreciation for the mysterious lines and curves of a girl's legs, back, and shoulders, that I had previously lacked completely.

"We performed _Aida _last week . . . "

I stared up at her, chewing slowly. I neither knew what _Aida _was, nor did I see how it concerned me.  
"There was a mask the priestess wore when during her festival dances. I can bring it to you so that you may breathe better . . . though . . . "

I looked down, feeling quite foolish for my pride, and removed the mask little by little. The fresh air brushed against my skin and the unmistakable scent of foggy water hit my nostrils. It was a relief to be free of my covering for the moment, but, despite myself, I couldn't seem to restrain my fingers from creeping up and concealing the right side of my face.

She brought me the mask, along with some blankets, a bar of soap, and a bucket of tepid water later that night. I wondered idly if anyone wondered what foolishness she was up to as she bustled about gathering such an odd assortment of effects.

She busied herself arranging my collection of blankets in a snug spot where the walls met at an extreme point, chatting amiably the entire time, as I secured my mask with the hooks sown to the sides. It touched the tip of my nose, flamboyantly and vibrantly decorated and downy on the inside with a thick layer of black felt. It looked ridiculous, I was sure of it, but it was far more comfortable than the shoddy wool of my carnival costume. I had a sudden, impulsive urge to look at my own reflection; a feeling I hadn't experienced in years.

With an ardent and sincere promise to return the following day with more food, Madeline left me there.

* * *

Over the next week, I took to exploring that level and the one below. I was frightened to go too far down that chilling, spiraling staircase. Instead, I found rooms on the level beneath, stuffed to the ceiling with long forgotten props and furniture from varying productions. Rugs and curtains were bundled up in disordered piles, covered with dust. Most were deep, rich colors, made with velvets and silks, and hand embroidered with gilt.

Another room was full of plaster busts. I'm sure they would have meant something to those more knowledgeable and whose life experiences stretched further than the indifferent and formidable bars of a cage, but to me, they were only glaring representations of normalcy. I hated them. I slammed the door and attempted to put them and their asymmetrical, conventional faces from my mind.

I continued to explore; climbing up to the upper levels, even reaching the dorms and stage . . . always under the compliant and obliging cover of darkness.

Shadow was my protector and friend.

I climbed in secret holes and cubbies. The Opera House became this demented child's playground at night. I climbed the riggings above the stage, my monkey comrade clutched tightly against my chest. I didn't care about my own safety, it was superfluous, but that one horrific moment my treasured toy slipped from beneath my arm and fell onto the black board of Box 5's top, my heart skipped with panic. With no regard to my own well being, and with no other consideration beyond the rescue of my friend, I clambered perilously down the riggings and catwalks, landing with a muted thud atop the box and squarely onto my toy. The box quivered beneath my insignificant weight. I realized then that the paneling could be pulled back, revealing the inside of the private balcony. With shaky hands and strangely trembling knees, I slipped through the opening and landed in the middle of the dark room. I sucked in a deep breath, suddenly feeling as though I were breathing stolen air.

The seats were made of red velvet, wide backed and comfortable. Unlike the auditorium seats, the private box contained ones that moved freely, so they could be set anywhere within the confines of the box's three walls and concealing curtain. I lifted the chair silently and gingerly pulled it farther back into the shadows. I lined two seats together, hidden by the drapes and dark. I sat tentatively onto the supple cushion; somewhere in the irrational sections of my immature mind, I feared that as soon as by backside touched that forbidden and exclusive place, every light in that enormous opera house would flare to life and expose me as the trespasser I was.

Nothing stirred, though, as I sunk into the chair. I placed my friend in the seat next to me, facing the stage; my one companion and date for this silent and imagined performance.

I took a calming breath and gazed out onto the empty panorama. The stage was still set up for the current production of _Carmen_. I could hear the strains of the Soprano's voice and the notes of the instruments even at my lower level but it was muffled and unpleasant each night as I tried to sleep. She was a small French girl, with a voice that carried. I heard she was moving to England to be with her new husband and would continue her stage career there. Her last performance of Carmen was a few days away. I had a sudden vision of her waif-like form, strutting and swaying as she lured her prey, Don Jose, to her web. I imagined all the fluttering fans and expensive petticoats of the audience as they whispered and pointed, amused for a few hours by the music, only to leave and think no more of it.

Unappreciative dullards.

I stayed in that box the entire night with my friend and the next evening, I searched for a spot beneath the stage to hear the play. I finally found a position, a few levels below the orchestra. I heard her as she sung; a vibration in her voice that seems to cause the walls to shiver and my heart to strum. Her pleasing mezzo was sharp and dark like cut glass, and seemed to well up from deep inside her belly, from her soul. I sat Indian style on the damp concrete, my fingernails digging deeply into the skin of my calves as I remained transfixed, nearly hypnotized by her voice as the violins swelled behind her and carried her along, the sounds almost on top of me.

After that, I listened to every Opera there. I closed my eyes and pretended I was in the audience, watching from a private balcony. I fell in love with music. I stole one of the orchestra's violin and music book weeks afterward. It took me months to teach myself the opening notes to _The Resurrection of Lazarus_. I went from recollection, putting my fingers where I remembered the gypsy's had as they'd played. I had no guideposts but my own ears to tell me when I'd succeeded. I few weeks it took me to find the first note, that was all, but I continued on inexorably. This new undertaking provided me with a welcome distraction and with something to challenge my languishing mind.

After I'd deciphered the notes and technicalities, though, playing came naturally.

Madeline was the fist to hear my music. I played for her on the same day I noticed that cursed ring she now wore on her left hand. I was no simpleton, as she apparently was hoping I was.

She was leaving me.

I didn't cry, I wanted to, but I merely stared at her in chill silence, only speaking enough to ask her what I was expected to do once she was gone.

She twisted that ring around and wiped away the wetness from her cheeks. "I can't stay here forever, Erik."

"What am I supposed to do?" I hissed through my teeth once more. I'd depended on her for four years now for food and anything I required.

"You need to survive."

Those were her last words to me and I followed them. I began stealing, sometimes even in the presence of the inhabitants of the Opera House. I had to admit to a certain amusement I felt when I heard the girlish screams I left in my wake when one of the ballet rats would set down a plate a food and turn to find it gone.

I stole anything I needed, including clothes. According to my estimate, I was twelve but I certainly felt older. My trousers almost reached my knees, and my shirt refused to button over my chest. I stole from the male ballerinas, though I found that many of them were shorter than me as well.

It was this state of affairs concerning my clothes that spurred on my idea. I'd picked up a nickname in my years of stealing, "The Opera Ghost", and apparently even a little truth-turned-story about my handiness with a noose made its way around the dorms.

Initially, I was nervous that someone would find me with all the talk. I was not well protected on the level below the chapel. And so I steeled myself and descended the stairs.

What I found was a lake . . . and a home.

The first few demands were disregarded. But following an unfortunate incident with our new, and quite horrid, soprano being whispered to in the dark of her dressing room by the Opera Ghost, when I dropped through the ceiling of Box 5 for the fourth time, my 20,000 francs were there. I snatched it up and stayed to listen to the confused cry of Lefevre as he entered to find it gone, despite the fact that he was watching the door from another box.

I was obliged to venture outside with my new wealth. I left a hefty sum and a brief, demanding note to the suit maker's down the street and was pleasantly surprised to find the garments hanging where I'd specified, and even more pleasantly surprised to see that Madame L'oiseau was not nosy enough to try to see who picked up the items in the near dead of night. I went down to my lakeside room, which I'd begun furnishing with old props, and laid out my suit on my bed, which I'd been obliged to dismantle completely and reassemble once all the pieces were carried down, but it hadn't been much of a task. Actually, not many things were hard for me. The painting and sowing I'd taken up to occupy myself came easily; so easy that it frustrated me. I had also taken an interest in the girls, more so than made me comfortable. I watched them, but never in their dorms, and I never invaded their privacy. They already had one stagehand doing so; they didn't need an Opera Ghost ogling them as they dressed as well.

My new job as a specter was entertaining, though I feely admit that I felt a bit ashamed for finding enjoyment in the act of terrifying people. This shame though, was quickly overcome as I ran a hand down the expensive Italian silk of my newly purchased jacket and trousers. I was eighteen now, at least, I assumed I was. Even the male dancer's outfits were tight in the inseam and pulled across the shoulders, so perhaps I was older. I was tall, surprisingly so since my mother had been a dainty thing, to say the least.

I flung off my shirt, grateful to be rid of the too tight material and unbuttoned my trousers. As I leaned forward to pull the crisp white shirt from off its coat-hanger, I caught sight of myself in the partially covered mirror on the other side of the bed. At the time, I didn't think to hard about why I felt the need to garnish my new home with covered mirrors. In retrospection, I realize that I was already going mad, in a slow and steady way that would keep me unconscious of it.

In any case, I saw myself for the first time in years; the long arm and torso that I outstretched were reflected back to me with an inexcusable clarity. It startled me for a moment, I was so unrecognizable. The arm that I saw was sturdy, with a muscle rounded from years of climbing the riggings. The torso I saw was lithe but broad, hard and strong. I was pale, with a smattering of dark hair on my chest and belly that I had completely overlooked since it had developed. I froze in midair, staring at myself.

With a sudden, strange impulse, I rounded the bed and stood in front of the glass, lifting the curtain enough to see the right side of my face, but not the left. What I saw was a boy who was now finally a man, a tall and well-formed one.

I lifted the curtain more, revealing that horrid deformity that was the left side of my face and then dropped the curtain completely, smoothing it down so that nothing could be seen. With a distracted mind, I pushing down my pants and dressed.

* * *

Madeline reentered my life two years later. My reign was set. I'd survived as she'd ordered me to . . . in fact, _survived _was an understatement considering the rooms I lived in and the clothes I wrapped myself in. I became accustomed to the best, and what I couldn't buy because I was frightened to venture too far, I made myself.

My lakeside apartment was furnished from corner to corner with the finest I could find. Even my mask was now custom made and pristine, a solid white that only covered what I couldn't bear to look at. I found the color was convenient for terrorizing as well, since it was all that could be seen in the dark.

With my newfound infamy came paranoia as well. I set up traps about my domain; and I didn't intend to maim, I meant to kill. I was defending myself, I reasoned. My life depended on my myth, on their fear. I was certain that as soon as it was even suspected that their Opera Ghost was merely a recluse living in the bowels of the opera house, I would be apprehended.

The vision of gendarmes flooding my home to ruin my work and expose me to the world terrified me more than any other horror this world could burden me with.

And so I made sure that any curiosity concerning me would lead to certain death.

It was here that Madeline almost met her end.

I heard the splash as I was composing. Madame Giry was fortunate I was not playing as she foolishly attempted to wade her way to my rooms. I never discovered how she'd found out my location at all, but somehow she'd tracked me down.

I went still when I heard the violent movement of water nearby. I'd settled myself to the idea of letting any intruder die, but now that the reality of it was upon me, my heart sped with panic, and couldn't help but stand and attempt to see who my first victim would be.

I didn't recognize her at first. I trailed silently on the small ledge the traced the lake until I could see her. She had grown older, hardened from that small fragile girl I once knew into a tall and stately woman. The color of her hair and the arch of her eyebrows gave her away.

Once I knew it was her, I raced down the lake, and called out to her:

"Madame, stop!"

She screamed when she heard my voice, her hand coming to cover her heart as though it were going to jump out of her chest. She cowered from me when she finally spied me walking near her, towering above her there in the lake as I walked quickly on the diminutive ledge to reach her.

"Madame, please do not take another step or you will be terribly sorry." I warned. One more step and she would set off a net from beneath her that would spring up with enough force to slam her against the ceiling of my lair.

She still stared at me, seemingly unaware of whom I was.

"Madeline . . . " I ordered and finally recognition lit up in her eyes.

"Erik?" She whispered, her hand coming from her mouth to reach out to me.

I leaned forward to grasp her fingers, but she was still too far away.

"Erik . . . you've grown so big and so han-" The last word puffed out in a mere exhalation. I didn't dare think of what she was going to say; didn't dare humor myself by entertaining the thought that any person would find me anything but hideous.

"Madame, it would be wise for you to stop gaping and take my hand or else my horrid visage will be the last sight you will see on this earth."

She looked about her with sudden worry. "Why?"

"There is a trap beneath you. Come to me." I raised my palm to her and she finally waded her way to me until I could take hold of her elbow and heft her from the lake. She was light despite the fact that there was an obvious bump around her middle.

I had very little time to contemplate this new development, seeing as the ledge was hardly large enough to hold us both face to face. Her feet were between my own, and for a suffocating moment, I felt her flush against me, her hair scented with fruit and water. It was the first physical contact I'd had for over ten years, and the force of it almost buckled my knees. But it would hardly have done either of us any good to tumble into the lake together, and that obviously round belly pressing into my hip was enough to keep my mind focused on getting her dry and warm.

"Move your foot over." I commanded. When she was next to me, almost hugging the wall, I pressed a hand to her back to prevent her falling and encouraged her to start making her way towards my rooms.

"Do you do this often?" She grunted, her movements slow and deliberate. It probably would have been best for her to face away from the wall, so that her stomach was not so much of a hindrance, but turning her around would have been too difficult.

"Actually, I have a boat." I supplied.

She laughed at that.

It seemed an eternity to make it to solid and sufficient ground.

Once we were standing safely in my main room, she tore herself away from staring at me to peruse my home, running a bold hand over my furniture and collections, stopping and giving special attention to my extensive and well read library. She eased _Dante's Inferno_ from its spot and flipped it open. "So this is where you used to go? You were even more resourceful than I imagined, Erik."

"I do my best, Madame. I have a robe you may use if you would like me to hang your dress to dry?" I offered, thankful that her back was turned since I could not restrain myself from blushing as the harmless words left my mouth.

"That would be lovely." She accepted with no hint of scandal. I showed her my bedchamber, which she smiled at for some unknown reason, and left her to robe herself. After she'd reemerged into the main room and allowed me to hang her wet dress and underskirt, she'd settled herself into a chair across from my organ.

"Did you find all these things?" She asked.

"Yes."

She gestured towards me with a flick of her agile wrist. "And the clothes?"

"I purchased them, of course. How else does one obtain tailored garments?" I riposted arrogantly, feeling suddenly on guard against this strange presence in my little world of solitude.

"Really? And how do you earn your monies?" She demanded knowingly. When I failed to answer, she sighed; the vibration of it bounced around the cavern. So . . . c'est vrai, you are the Opera Ghost. I was hoping it was not true."

"The Opera Ghost?" I echoed, feigning ignorance.

"Don't think you can trick me, Erik, with those innocent eyes of yours. You are no actor." She went so far as to stomp her foot, which amused me. 'The very first thing I heard when I entered was the story of the Opera Ghost that milks 20,000 francs from Levefre every month."

"I merely took your advice. I survived."

"Through terror and extortion?" Her voice rose dangerously. I could see she was determined to argue me into a corner, but I wouldn't allow it.

"What brings you here?" I asked lightly.

She cracked a small smile and settled her head back in the cushion of the chair. "My lord, you look so different." She murmured, almost to herself. "I am assuming the position of ballet mistress since Madame Valerius in retiring."

"Where is your husband?" Years living by myself had blunted my manners, apparently.

"I would like to know the answer to that as well." She replied with a mocking tone that was belied by the hardness of her eyes.

"He left?" I gaped stupidly, "But you are . . . "

"With child?" She finished once I had trailed off ungracefully. "Would you believe me if I told you I'd merely eaten too many pastries and jam?"

"No." I may have been a recluse, but I was no fool to the realities of life.

"You play?" She asked suddenly, switching topics abruptly.

I sat at my organ, flipping my tails out elegantly. I still wished to ask her of her husband but was wise enough to see she didn't want to continue in that vein. "Some may call it that." I answered self-deprecatingly. My music was no opera.

"I'm sure you play heavenly. I still remember that piece you played for me before I left. I'd heard it hundreds of times before, but in your hands it was different. By the way, Gustave Daee is ill . . ." at my blank look, she clarified, "the man you purloined your violin and music book from? You stole his instrument, you could a least have the courtesy to know his name."

"Oh."

Silence settled. The candles waved with a sudden draft.

"I missed you." She finally said unexpectedly.

I was taken off guard for a moment, for no one had ever said such a kind thing to me before. My ribs seemed to contract upwards into my chest, and I had to bite my tongue to stifle a gasp. "I admit," I started slowly, "that it was much easier when you were around to steal things for me."

"Borrow." She corrected lightly.

"When will you move here?"

"All my things will be here by tomorrow evening. I won't commence my duties until the child is born . . . oh, do stop looking at me like that Erik, my condition is nothing unusual."

"How long will it be?" I blushed and pulled my eyes away from her midsection. I do not know why it held such a strange fascination for me.

"Around five months."

"Do you have names?" I asked, moving my fingers above the keys of my instrument, already planning an aria in dedication of her child once I knew the names she'd decided on.

"No . . . Would you like to name her?"

My hands came down on the keys, filling the room with a discordant and loud sound that was far from heavenly. I felt uncomfortable with her offer, as if she were setting me in a fatherly position that was not mine; and never would be mine. I knew that no woman would ever allow me be the father of her child, or allow me to do any of the things that would lead to such a situation to begin with.

"You are certain it is a girl?" I attempted to evade the question.

"I can _feel _her daintiness." She whispered conspiratorially. "So what would you like to call her?"

"I shouldn't-" I started to stand, feeling warm all over.

"I need a man to Christen her, left entirely to me I will be tempted to name her Daisy or Buttercup or something else disgustingly feminine."

I resisted the urge to lift my mask to wipe at my brow, which was moist. "Meg." I answered without thinking.

"Meg?" She repeated. "Marguerite? That sounds nice."

"It was my mother's name." I answered, once again, without thinking.

She straightened noticeably, perking up at the mention of my mother whom I had never so much as referenced before. "Did she pass?" She inquired, trying and failing to assume a nonchalant tone.

"Yes, years ago." My tone was brusque and abrupt.

She was a wise woman and dropped the issue. "Meg and Madeline." She let the word roll off her tongue, "I think that fits us well." She sighed a burrowed into the chair, her eyes closing sleepily, "May I stay for a bit, Erik?"

"Of course, your dress is not dry as of yet. I will escort you back whenever you wish to take your leave." I didn't mention that wished for her to stay for other reasons as well, her presence made me awkward, but I longed for contact and the simple blessing of hearing her steady breathing was a gift I hadn't realized I'd coveted.

"Play me a little music from heaven, Erik. Sing for me." She requested and promptly dropped off to sleep.

* * *

Meg was born almost five months later. Madeline visited me often, and took to delivering my notes and things without any verbal agreement between us. But she never brought her child with her. Little Meg's absence became unbearable but I could never bring myself to demand an answer from Madeline. It was clear enough that she did not wish to expose her little girl to the monster she'd befriended in the bottom of the opera house.

So I watched her grow from afar, her little blonde head bobbing about the halls and behind the stage during productions.

I yearned to pick her up, for some unsettling reason. But I refused to emasculate myself by asking for such a silly consideration. What was I to say? "_I wish to hold your child_"?

It mattered not anyway, heaven would soon send me my own treasure to hold and guide.


End file.
